Los Angeles Dodgers

July 21, 2014

In a vacuum, there's not a team in baseball that wouldn't like to have David Price. Based on talent alone, he's one of the game's true aces and would have a spot reserved for him in any rotation in the game.

Baseball, of course, is not played in a vacuum, and there are many other variables that factor in to whether or not a team has realistic interest in David Price. Be it their record in the standings, their payroll, or his impending free agency in a year and two months, Price is not a fit for every team right now in his current state, regardless of his talent. It's the economics of baseball that make him less desirable to some than others.

Some of this will change in a matter of months. The re-setting of the standings back to 0-0 come November has a wonderful effect on the state of a team. There are organizations, the Rangers and Red Sox perhaps among the top of the list, who could very well have interest in a player like Price for next season, when they are likely to be competitive, but have little use for him this year in what have turned out to be lost seasons. There are others still, teams like the Padres and Twins come to mind, who are far enough away form contention that won't have interest in Price even with the optimism of a blank slate in front of them.

But the Tampa Bay Rays are looking to move Price now, this season, before the trade deadline in 10 days, because with more than just two months remaining on his contract and Price pitching well, his value will never be higher. It diminishes with each passing day that brings him closer to becoming what is sure to be a very expensive free agent.

The Rays have done this before. They know the drill. They have a blueprint on how to trade a star player for prospects. It's a part of how they function, jettisoning their increasingly expensive stars who don't sign team-friendly deals early in their careers for future stars who might. It's a way to ensure they are always relatively competitive while functioning with a low payroll. It's not an ideal plan, but it's the best one for the resources with which they have to work.

We've seen them do this before, and we know what they want. The Rays want a package of players, but unlike most teams trading away veterans in July, the Rays are not in a full-scale rebuild. They don't want just any prospects - they need at least one who is ready to play in the majors right away. At the very least, he needs to be someone who can be an regular contributor to their 2015 roster, much like Wil Myers was as the centerpiece of the James Shields trade before the 2013 season.

That requirement further eliminates potential trade partners for the Rays. Even with some deep farm systems, there are many organizations that don't have a centerpiece player that will meet the Rays immediate requirements. Additionally, as the Addison Russell/Rays rumors show, one top prospect isn't going to be enough to get it done. The rest of the package will have to be significant as well. There have been rumors as well surrounding non-contending teams like the Cubs as potential suitors for Price, but I don't buy them. That's a deal that is more likely this off-season when there is time for extension talks during the negotiating process.

So for now, we need a potential contender with a major league-ready impact prospect and a few other second-tier prospects to include in the trade. Finding this may be harder than we think.

Lacking the Big Prospect

The Braves, Nationals, Brewers, Giants, Angels, Tigers, Yankees and Blue Jays could all be considered contenders to varying degrees, but none of them have the kind of ML ready impact prospect the Rays likely want. Only the Nationals, with Lucas Giolito, have a prospect talented enough to at least start a conversation, and he's a good enough prospect that the Rays would likely listen, but it would take a shift in their organizational philosophy to go that direction. The closest a team on this list would come to getting a deal done for Price would likely be the Blue Jays, with Aaron Sanchez currently in Triple-A, but with questions about his ability to remain a starter, he's likely just short of what the Rays are looking for.

One Big Prospect, but Not the Package

The Orioles and Indians both have the one key piece the Rays covet. For the Orioles, it's Dylan Bundy, who may not be ready to join their rotation right now, but will be soon and certainly could be by next season. He's not as major league ready as they may like, but he's pretty darn close and pretty darn good. For the Indians, it's Francisco Lindor, who could put a stop to the Rays revolving door at shortstop. He's still in Double-A, but his glove has been major league ready for years and could absolutely hold his own in the majors right now. At worst, he'd head to Triple-A for the rest of this year and open the season at Tropicana in 2015.

The problem for both teams is that there's a major drop off after that. The Orioles could offer prospects like Eduardo Rodriguez or the extremely-talented Hunter Harvey, but it's unlikely that they'd want to part with more than one top pitching prospect. The Orioles have virtually no impact position players in any of the top levels of their minor league system. Bundy may be enough to start the conversation, but they won't get much further than the A's did in the Russell conversation.

The have a little more to offer, though their best options are equally far from the majors. Clint Frazier would be enticing, but he's had an up=and-down season in Low-A ball this year and that would constitute trading the top two prospects in the system, something the Indians are unlikely to do. A package around Lindor and Tyler Naquin might be interesting, but it's not enough and the Indians system offers virtually no pitching, unless the Rays want to take a chance on Danny Salazar. Even still, it feels like it's a significant piece short.

The Pirates

The Pirates get their own category because they have the need and the talent to get it done, but probably won't. Their farm system has taken a hit with the injury to Jameson Taillon and the promotion of Gregory Polanco, but it is still strong. The Rays would probably ask for Polanco, which would get shot down quickly. Still, even among just prospects still in the minors, the Pirates may have enough. Nick Kingham doesn't have the highest ceiling, but he is just about major league ready and could join the Rays rotation next year. Tyler Glasnow has a much higher ceiling and will be in Double-A next year, not exactly major league ready but a good enough prospect to make the deal a possibility. The Pirates have enough depth that they could offer the Rays virtually any other combination of prospects they could desire, from Alen Hanson to Luis Heredia to Reese McGuire, just to name a few. It's a deep system with lots of flexibility.

But the Pirates won't do it. Neal Huntington has been remarkably conservative with his prospects, choosing to deal third-tier players for role-playing veterans rather than make a big splash. Taking on David Price and his payroll would signal a major shift in organizational philosophy and I'd be shocked to see the Pirates empty out the cupboard for just a year and two months. They've been thinking long-term for too long to shift now.

The Possibilities

This leaves us with four teams with a legitimate shot at Price, but still some more so than others. The Dodgers, Cardinals, Mariners and Reds all believe themselves to be in contention and have at least one upper-echelon prospect in the top levels of their farm systems with which they could part.

In reverse order of likelihood:

Reds - The Reds are bleeding chips in a stacked NL Central and need more help on offense then on the mound, so they're not a strong candidate here. Still, they could get a deal done and a staff of Price-Cueto-Simon-Bailey in the post-season could be daunting. It would take Robert Stephenson to get a deal done, something the Reds are unlikely to do. He's not a perfect fit for the Rays either because, despite spending the entire season at Double-A, he's not quite major league ready and Opening Day 2015 would be aggressive. Still, he's a top talent and would pique the Rays interest, and coupled with some other strong prospects (a Stephenson/Jesse Winker package would be tough to turn down), the Reds could likely get this done if they so choose. They're more likely to go after a bat, but they could be a dark-horse for Price.

Cardinals - The Cardinals pride themselves on letting a player go a year to early rather than a year to late, and have been able to do so based on the strength of their farm system, the backbone of which is pitching. That alone would make a prospects-for-Price trade surprising based on their history. Still, they're getting threatened in the NL Central for the first time in a while and despite their incredible pitching depth, they seem to be searching for rotation answers. They have a prospect in Oscar Taveras who would be the best possible centerpiece for the Rays on the market, and plenty of additional depth to make a trade work. The question for the Cardinals is if they feel they need to make a move for Price to get a deal done or if they are comfortable chasing a pennant with Shelby Miller and Carlos Martinez.

Mariners - We've been hearing the Price to the Mariners rumors since February, and at the center of them is Taijuan Walker, who is exactly the pitching prospect the Rays covet. He's young, he's great and he's ready. It's a reasonable question to ask why the Mariners wouldn't have just made this trade and had David Price all season if it was going to happen, but there's a certain "better late than never" quality to this deal. Walker would be the centerpiece but the rest of the trade would revolve around some former prospects who have struggled in the majors. Players like Nick Franklin have their value to the Rays and can still become quality major leaguers, but there's not a ton of impact ceiling in this deal after Walker. Additionally, losing Walker and adding Price makes the Mariners better, but only incrementally so. They'd be much better served keeping Walker and adding a right-handed bat to help their offense.

Dodgers - The Dodgers have the best package to offer the Rays, with Joc Pederson as the headliner. Pederson is a top prospect and would already be in the majors on almost any other team and would be in the Rays starting lineup tonight if the traded happened today. If they are parting with Pederson, it would probably take other top prospects like Corey Seager or Julio Urias off the table, but the Dodgers could still offer another major league-ready prospect in right-handed pitcher Zach Lee. He's not a big impact prospect, but he profiles as an innings-eater, has been in Triple-A all season, and would be ready when called upon by the Rays. The Dodgers don't really need Price, but since when have the Dodgers been concerned with what they really need? A healthy Josh Beckett (when he returns from the DL) gives them a full rotation, but no team could match up with a Kershaw-Price-Grienke rotation in the playoffs, and that may be enticing enough to get the Dodgers into action. They also have the money to essentially offer him a market-value extension and keep him for more than a year and two months.

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With the expanded playoff system and increased parity, there are more buyers than sellers for the Rays, which should work to their advantage. Unfortunately, the market doesn't match up exceptionally well for their needs. The teams that have the biggest need for Price don't have the prospects to offer the Rays. The teams that have the prospects, don't necessarily have the need.

The Rays may be best served to wait until the off-season when there will be more suitors. The re-setting of the records will open up doors for more teams to be interested and the un-timed off-season will allow a potential trade partner to work out an extension with Price during the trade negotiations, something which rarely happens mid-season. The Rays are wise to try to trade Price when his value is highest, but they won't want to settle on a diminished package just to make the move now. If they can't get the value they want, they could be better served to wait until the winter, let the market reset itself, and try again.

July 14, 2014

The California League is a fun place to hit and a miserable place to pitch. It's a great place to gain your confidence as a hitter and lose it as a pitcher. It's a great place to emerge as a hitting prospect and deflate as a pitching prospect, perhaps neither being as warranted as the numbers might suggest. Much like the offensive environment, or opinions about prospects can often get extreme based on what they do in the California League.

Corey Seager is not one of those players whose status as a prospect is being inflated by hitting in the California League, though his numbers certainly are. Anyone hitting .352/.411/.633 at any level is getting some help from somewhere, whether it's BABIP luck, good hitting environments, or a favorable touch from the baseball gods. Still, we can't discount Seager's raw abilities just because he's putting up monster numbers in the California League.

There are some questions about whether the Dodgers will be able to keep Seager at short stop or eventually shift to third base like his brother Corey, a major league all-star with the Mariners. Even my co-workers at Baseball Prospects have differing opinions on the matter. What no one disagrees with, however, is that Seager is going to hit, though the question remains just how much.

We're going to get a better answer to that question soon. While Seager put up strong numbers in the Midwest League as an 18-year-old in 2013, his ridiculous production this season can't help but skew our view of him, no matter how much scouts attempt to be impartial to results. But his time terrorizing California League pitching is over, with the biggest challenge waiting ahead.

After a longer-than-normal all-star break, where the Dodgers are allowing him to remain in Minnesota (where he played in the Future's Game) to watch his brother take play in the All-Star game. He's already been promoted, however, and after the break, he'll head to Double-A Chattanooga.

This will be the big test for Seager. Not only is he leaving behind the friendly confines of the California League and going to a more neutral hitting context, but the jump to Double-A is generally considered the most difficult for hitters. A prospect of Seager's caliber, or at least the caliber we believe him to be, should be able to handle the jump as so many prospects do, but expectations must be tempered well below the bar he set for himself in the first half.

Seager could struggle initially in Double-A, much as he did in his first brief stint in High-A last season. Seager's biggest flaw as a hitter is his aggressive approach, and Double-A is the first level where pitcher's are equipped to exploit that. The breaking balls are better and pitchers have a plan, which can take advantage of reactionary hitters who fail to adjust. Seager wouldn't be the first prospect, or the best, to struggle in his initial attempt to hit Double-A pitching until he makes an adjustment.

Regardless of his initial success or failure, we'll know a lot more about Seager after the next two months. The results are not important, but how he handles a higher level of pitching in a less forgiving environment will be telling. Seager is going to be a major league hitter, but his ability to handle more advanced pitching, primarily more advanced off-speed pitches and more prepared pitchers, will let us know whether he's a star in the making or if his ceiling falls somewhere lower.

Either way, we'll have a better idea of what kind of prospect he is now that he's leaving the California League behind.

June 24, 2014

A favorite past time of those who follow prospects is calling for, musing about, and generally begging for a favorite prospect to get promoted, not necessarily to the major leagues but to the next level along his developmental path. Some requests are warranted, others the product of the average fan's combination of impatience and lack of first-hand knowledge of the prospect. Neither is a knock on fans - passion is what makes baseball and following prospects great. But a better understanding of how these decisions are made and why, or why not, they happen can only enhance everyone's enjoyment of the game.

There are a number of reasons that a prospect is or is not promoted mid-season, and his stat line and box scores are down extremely low on the list. For a player to get promoted simply because his numbers requires an off-the-charts performance. It does, however, sometimes happen, although as you'll see, there are usually additional circumstances involved.

Needing a Challenge

Joey Gallo entered the 2014 season known as one of the best power hitters in the minors. This distinction was based on scouting reports touting his 80 raw power as being perhaps the best in all of minor league baseball and was aided by his 38 home run performance last year in the Midwest League. That performance, however, came with 165 strike outs and a .245 batting average. Despite Gallo's ridiculous power and the fact that it had manifested itself on the field, there were still questions about his hit tool and how it would play out at higher levels.

Gallo is progressing quicker than anyone expected.

Photo by Brian Bissel - Future Star Photos

That power got Gallo on our Top-101 at Baseball Prospectus this off-season, but with tempered optimism in the 95 spot. This year, Gallo came out with the power blazing once again, but with some new tricks up his sleeve.

Gallo began the year in the Carolina League and hit 21 home runs in 58 games, a pace that outdid even his own expectations set from last season. What was more impressive, however, was the way he approached his at-bats. He became more selective at the plate, drawing additional walks when pitchers avoided him (something that's bound to happen more and more as his reputation spreads) and striking out less. While he's still prone to swings-and-misses, he scaled them back to a significantly more manageable level and the result was .323 batting average and .463 on-base percentage to go along with the power and a promotion to Double-A.

The home runs were an amazing run, but to a certain extent, they were expected. Power is not new to Joey Gallo. What got him promoted, however, was the change in approach. The Rangers were expecting Gallo to need an entire year at each level, and he is young enough to handle it and still would have made it to the majors around age 22. It was the development in his approach at the plate, not his power production, however, that got him promoted. The home runs were expected. This kind of adjustment was not.

Timing the Future

Earlier this season, it felt like Gallo and Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant were playing a game of "anything you can do, I can do better." If one homered, the other hit two. It was an incredible performance by both players.

Bryant's however, was happening in Double-A, which put him within arm's reach of the major leagues. That, coupled with the desperation of Cubs' fans for something watchable at Wrigley, fueled the calls for Bryant's promotion, if not all the way to the big leagues than to Triple-A at least. About three weeks ago, I wrote about why that was unnecessary. The Cubs waited two more weeks before eventually giving in and sending Bryant to Triple-A, which have only added fuel to the fire.

Despite his success, the Cubs may not call Bryant up to the big leagues at all this year. They are getting a hard time about being cheap, but really that has little to do with it. The Cubs are going to have to pay Bryant at some point and have always been willing to open their wallets. With Bryant, it's about team control.

The Cubs don't want to bring him up this year in what is another lost season. To start his service clock this season would be a waste of one of his low-cost, team-controlled seasons. Production from pre-arbitration players is far and away the most valuable commodity in all of baseball, and to waste any of it on a season like this would be foolish.

The reason his promotion to Triple-A took so long was as part of a long-term plan to call him up next year, probably after the super-two deadline passes in June. Bryant was clearly not being challenged in Double-A, but if they promoted him to Triple-A too soon, it would be tough to justify returning him there next season. The last thing the Cubs want to do is force themselves into a situation where they have no choice but to break camp with Bryant on their major league roster next spring, thus losing a full year of team control. If he had spent four months in Triple-A and had any success on par with what he did in Double-A, there would be no avoiding that fate.

For the Cubs, waiting to promote Bryant even though he was dominating Dobule-A was about setting up his timing for next season. There was more to it than just his immediate production.

It's a Process

The stats only tell part of the story. Scouting tells us more of it, but still not the entire thing. To understand some of the decisions made, we need to step back and look at the entire picture.

Jose Berrios has been dominant this season in the Florida State League, both on paper and in person. WIth a 2.05 ERA, 10.6 K/9 and 2.3 BB/9, Berrios has had no trouble with High-A ball despite being just 20-years-old. In person, Berrios is even more impressive, with easy mechanics, a plus slider and plus change-up that over-match FSL hitters. It would have been justifiable for the Twins to promote him at the all-star break, as was done with many of the league's best pitchers.

They didn't however, because there's more to the story. Berrios was doing quite well in the Midwest League last year too, but towards the end of the season, he began to wear down. It may have been the rigors of going through a full professional season for the first time, hitting a wall that many young pitchers hit their first time through. It could have been because his size, at just 6'0" 185 lbs., doesn't hold up well to the innings needed to be a starting pitcher. There's no way to know why for sure, but he lost velocity towards the end of the 2013 season.

Not having this happen again is one of the final barriers that Berrios needs to overcome to join the discussion of the game's elite pitching prospects. Scouts in hand will be able to tell if his velocity drops, but by keeping him in the FSL, we have a constant level of competition against which we can compare his first and second half performances. Had he been promoted, it would have been easy to justify any struggles in Double-A, perhaps making the fact that his stuff dropped off at the end of the year again.

With a young player like Berrios, there is simply no rush. He's young and still has a few things (albeit very minor things) to figure out, and can afford to spend an entire year at every level and progress naturally.

Still Waiting

Despite all of this, however, there are still some players who leave you scratching your head and wondering why they are still where they are. Fans are not always wrong in their assumption that a player should be promoted. Many times there is something internally going on with a player or an organization that the public doesn't know about, or need to know about for that matter, which keeps a player where he is. But barring that sort of scenario, there are a few players who simply need a better challenge.

One of those players is Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager. At just 20 (he turned 20 in April), Seager is torching the California League to the tune of .353/.405/.613 with 13 home runs. There are still questions about whether he'll remain at shortstop or end up at third base, but there are very few questions about whether or not he'll hit.

The California League is a hitter's paradise and numbers there have to be taken with a grain of salt. Seager has clearly proved he can handle the league, and at this point, continuing to rake in a hitter's haven isn't proving anything to anyone. He's still far enough from the majors that the Dodgers don't have to worry about planning out his call-up and he can spend as much time in Double-A as he needs. It's just time for a new challenge, since he's clearly not getting one at the moment.

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With every prospect, there are different variables that have to be factored in to promotion decisions. It's not as simple as a player hitting or pitching well at a level and rushing him along. Years have gone into the developmental path players take through the minors and there's a reason that most of them hit each stop along the way, for however briefly. It's difficult to be patient with our favorite prospects, but such is the axiom of prospect-following.

March 31, 2014

Arizona Diamondbacks: The D-Backs appear to be prepared to go with Chris Owings over Didi Gregorius, and that's the right decision. He's just simply a better player. They went with their better judgement as well with Archie Bradley, allowing him to return to the minors and finish his development. He won't be down there for long, however.

Atlanta Braves: The M*A*S*H unit that has become the Braves pitching staff has opened the door for the likes of David Hale and Gus Schlosser to join their banged up rotation in a fit of desperation. It's not a great scenario for the Braves, who are otherwise poised to contend, but it's a credit to them that they have those kinds of players as depth. I discussed what can be expected from Schlosser earlier this week.

Chicago Cubs: It's not time for the big wave of prospects to hit the north side, but last year's trade acquisition Mike Olt played well enough this spring to warrant both a roster spot and an Opening Day start. The cavalry is coming, however, and will be led by Javier Baez at some point this summer.

Cincinnati Reds: I'd tell you about Billy Hamilton earning the leadoff and center field jobs in Cincinnati, but I think he just stole 10 more bases. The Reds are also going to lean on Tucker Barnhart as their backup catcher until Devin Mesoraco returns from the DL.

Colorado Rockies: The Rockies have a pair of rookie relievers in their bullpen. Chad Bettis saw time in the big leagues last year, but Tommy Kahnle was the long-shot as a Rule V pick out of D-II Lynn University. Kahnle throws very hard (upper-90's), but has some control issues he'll have to overcome.

San Francisco Giants: No prospects on the Giants. The Giants aren't as old as they use to be, but they're not exactly young.

St. Louis Cardinals: Kolten Wong held onto the second base job that was handed to him before the start of spring training, but Carlos Martinez was unable to win a rotation spot, though it had nothing to do with his performance. Martinez was excellent this spring, but the spot went to Joe Kelly while Martinez returns to the bullpen to pitch in high-leverage situations.

The elbow problem was not a lingering issue for Stripling that flared up again this spring the way it was for Miguel Sano, who is scheduled to undergo surgery sometime in the next week, but rather something that snuck up on Stripling about a week ago in an intersquad game. Because of the timing of the injury, it is unlikely that Stripling will return to action this year, but he should be ready for spring training next season.

For the 2014 Dodgers, Stripling did provide a certain amount of security in terms of organizational pitching depth that is slightly shallower than it was. Stripling isn't a high-ceiling prospect, but he is an extreme strike-thrower and was close to a finished product. Having spent most of the 2013 season in Double-A, he was targeted for Triple-A this season and would have been among those in reserve for when the Dodgers need additional starters at some point during the season.

With Tommy John surgery, the long road of recovery is often overlooked, and at this point, we now consider rehabilitation from the surgery to be a formality. In reality, it is anything but that, and despite a success rate well over 90 percent, there are still many obstacles for a pitcher to overcome. That being said. Stripling is a young pitcher with a mature frame, giving him as good of a chance as any pitcher to return to form.

At his best, Stripling profiles as a back-end starter who should have no trouble sticking in a big league rotation because of his ability to locate his fastball with precision, but lacks a truly high-end off-speed pitch. His injury shouldn't change that in the long-term, and mainly just pushes his timetable back a full calendar year.